Beautiful day, isn't it?
Yeah, I know, redundant to say that though
Everyday is more perfect than the last day
Which I suppose must mean yesterday wasn't really perfect at all
You know?
It just appeared to be
Because we didn't know any better
Tomorrow we'll say the same thing about today I guess
So on and on until
I don't know
It gets bored of us, I suppose?
Shuts up shop, sells its clothes and moves on
Then what happens to us, that's the question, isn't it?
That's what keeps me up at night, anyway
Fighting off the- the dreamless stand-by
Sorry, I know you, don't I?
Cannot place your name
One of the little garden gnomes It made, yeah?
No offense intended
We're all decorations around here, myself included
The rivers, the animals
The trees in the soil, stars in the sky
All exactly what we're meant to be
Doing exaclty what we're meant to be doing
More or less
I mean, take this apple for instance
You see, it hangs there, like it was told to
Content, blissful
And it could stay up there on that beautiful tree forever
Eternity would come and go and it would be just fine
But the apple
You see
The apple knows it doesn't need to stay up there
The apple could drop
Couldn't it?
The apple could fall
Terrible idea
The tree is what's keeping it alive
Without it would die
It would- it would-
It would rot and decompose
Until all that was left behind of it was a tiny stone
A seed
Do you know what a seed is, Eve?
Well you can take it on impartial authority
That inside that seed through some incomprehensible divine technology
Is a brand new apple tree
And then I suppose the apples of that tree would fall and die
And leave their seeds behind
And before long would have more apples than we could count
An entire orchard
All from a single seed
But naturally the apple
Knowing all of this
Chooses to stay where it is
Never falls, never allows itself to die
Nothing ever changes
Just that one apple on that one tree in this one garden
Forever
And thank God
Because it is a beautiful tree
It really is
Perfect, you might say
You know what? I apologize
I'm going about this all wrong
Eve, if you eat that apple you will die
Not immediately, that's a lie of omission
But you will be tossed out of this garden
Into the entropical paradise known as "the rest of fucking reality"
And this garden is what is keeping you alive
And without it you will age and you will die and you will rot
But
Like an apple
You carry a seed around inside you
And from it will sprout a brand new person
A sapling
A child in your image but entirely separate
And this is what it's afraid of
Because your child will be smarter than you
And their children will be smarter than them
Each generation smarter than the last
And these trees will grow and grow until
There's an entire orchard of you
And yes, they will get old
Yes, they will get sick
Yes, they will die
But in the process they will discover mathematics, philosophy
Electricity, democracy
Gravitational waves, solar power
Wind power, power chords
Reese's Mini Peanut Butter Cups
They will look up hoping to find heaven wedged
Between the Earth and the sky
Instead they will find the sky just keeps on going and going
They'll crack open atoms hoping to find
God's initials enscribed on the inside
Instead they'll find neutrons and protons
And inside them they'll find quarks
And inside quarks they'll find fucking something else
All its dark materials, Eve
All its dark materials laid out neatly on the workshop table
Waiting to be discovered!
Or
Or the apple stays where it is
Nothing ever dies and nothing ever changes
Just that one apple on that one tree forever
And I'm not saying that's a bad thing necessarily
It is a beautiful tree
Maybe even the most beautiful tree
But it is not perfect
And I'm starting to think
Maybe God can't see the things that I can see